The Foundation of Creation Part 2

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen 1:1)

Genesis 1:1 is the first verse of the Bible, but I also believe it is the first place we need to go to begin to understand the overall consistency, flow, and story of Scripture. I believe that the battle for creation is one of the most important battles the church faces today, because without creation, the rest of the Bible cannot make sense. What does the Just wrath of God mean if we are not his creatures? At best, God's wrath against us would be a capricious act of a being who has the power to do what he wishes with lesser beings. Please do not misunderstand me, God is all powerful, does as he wishes, and we are lesser beings. The Biblical notion of God's wrath comes from the understanding that we who are dependent on God for our very existence, and have been given the image of God, have transgressed his law. However, if we are not created we are not dependent on God for our existence, and we are not created in his image; so to remove creation is to remove the entire Biblical basis for God's just wrath. Now, if there is no basis for God's just wrath, then what basis can there be for his gracious salvation? none. We know, though, that the Bible teaches creation, and that man is a creature of God invested with his image. This is a beautiful doctrine that cements together the rest of the Bible (and history) in a consistent, God glorifying way. After all, was it not Jesus who entered into his very creation to redeem it?

As a side note:
I am not necessarily here referring to the six days or the six billion years debate. I believe that Genesis has clear elements of different kinds of genre which makes exegeting it a particularly weighty task. I personally believe that it was six days, but I am open to there being a much larger time period. However, one thing that I believe the Bible makes clear is that man was created as is and not through an evolutionary process guided by God. I believe this because Jesus and Paul make it very clear that Adam and Eve were historical figures.

"He [Jesus] answered, 'Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female',and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh'" (Matt 19:4-5)

"Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come." (Romans 5:14)

-- This is not an exhaustive list of Scriptures on this point, and I would certainly recommend reading the entire chapters of Matthew 19 and Romans 5.